Australia’s top 100 companies gave their chief executives an average cash pay cut of $74,000 last year, as investor pressure on boards to rein in executive remuneration intensified.

Fixed pay for Top 100 CEOs dropped $45,000 to $1.9 million in 2012, one of the few times CEO pay has lagged behind rises in average weekly earnings, while 18 per cent of chief executives missed out on their bonus.

“Post the GFC, boards have taken back control of executive pay," the chief executive of the Australian Council of Superannuation Investors, Ann Byrne, told The Australian Financial Review, while announcing the results of the survey conducted by ACSI and corporate governance group Ownership Matters .

“This shows investors have been able to influence boards, and boards are listening."

AFR
AFR

It also reflected the two-strikes policy under which shareholders can vote against remuneration reports, she said.

It’s only the second time in the past 11 years that CEOs’ fixed pay has dropped.

“Prior to 2008 it was understood that executive pay went up 10 per cent a year – that was just what happened," said Martin Lawrence, co-founder of Ownership Matters.

The study released on Friday also reports the sometimes spectacular difference between statutory pay for CEOs – the amount reported in the annual report – and the actual pay realised, including equity incentives expensed in earlier years.